Athletes, and particularly golfers, are interested in improving their game performance. One of the elements in golf performance in the through-the-air carry distance and the directional accuracy resulting from the golf drive.
As disclosed in U.S. Patent application Ser. No. 626,712 filed Oct. 29, 1975 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,259, owned by the assignee of the present invention, applicants have discovered through wind-tunnel tests and controlled mechanical driving of golf balls that they can predict the landing point of a driven golf ball with great accuracy if they are given the values of ball velocity, flight direction and ball spin in the immediate post-launch time period. In addition, applicants can diagnose problems in the golfer's swing if they are given the velocity, direction and rotary motions of the golf club head in the immediate pre-launch time period.
There are known monitoring devices for determining the position of a plurality of points on a moving object at two closely spaced points in time which can advantageously be used in the present invention to provide the required velocity and rotation data useable in making such performance predictions.